Zane (The Powers That Be, Book 6)

  Zane

  The Powers That Be

  Book 6

  Harper Bentley

  Check out other titles by Harper Bentley:

  The Powers That Be series:

  Gable (The Powers That Be Book 1)

  A Powers Play (The Powers That Be, Book 1.5)

  Zeke (The Powers That Be Book 2)

  Loch (The Powers That Be Book 3)

  Ryker (The Powers That Be Book 4)

  Drake (The Powers That Be Book 5)

  CEP series:

  Being Chased (CEP #1)

  Unbreakable Hearts (CEP #2)

  Under the Gun (CEP #3)

  The High-Rise series

  The Fighter

  Serenity Point series:

  Bigger Than the Sky (Serenity Point Book 1)

  Always and Forever (Serenity Point Book 2)

  True Love series:

  Discovering Us (True Love #1)

  Finding Us (True Love #2)

  Finally Us (True Love Book 3)

  True Love: The Trilogy: The Complete Boxed Set

  The Wait series:

  Thursdays (The Wait Book 1)

  Mondays (The Wait) (Volume 2)

  Big Deal Romantic Comedy series:

  The BFD (A Big Deal Romantic Comedy)

  http://harperbentleywrites.com/

  Copyright © 2018 Harper Bentley

  Digital Edition: February 2018

  Editors: Franca, Mel & Sam

  Cover image licensed by DepositPhotos

  Cover Photo design by Jada D’Lee Designs

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior express, written consent of the author

  Dedication

  To those

  who love the Powers guys

  as much as I do

  May you find your own

  Powers guy soon

  if you haven’t already

  ;)

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Gable (The Powers That Be, Book 1) Preview

  Chapter 1

  I first saw Zane Powers when I’d allowed my best friend Izzy (Isabel Smith, to be exact) to talk me into attending a baseball game at the University of Washington where I was majoring in oceanography with a minor in psychology and she was majoring in, well, who knew. She’d gone from fashion design to accounting to teaching and had subsequently been flirting with changing to an MRS degree because she was dating the pitcher who was on the mound at the time and she was head over heels in love.

  “Isn’t he hot!” she squealed—Izzy was definitely a squealy-type person—waving and pointing at her pitcher boyfriend from where we sat on the front row of the first-base side of the stadium.

  I only nodded because, yes, Kaleb was cute, but I’d been a bit obsessed with the first baseman’s butt. And, believe me, it was one fine behind.

  I was still staring at said booty when the batter of the other team hit a grounder right to Mr. Fine Behind who, while keeping one foot on the base, reached out and snagged the grounder, effectively getting the third out of the inning. And making his backside look even more spectacular.

  While the crowd went wild and I stared in adoration at those fabulous glutes, MFB turned, smiled up at the stands, then eyes meeting mine gave me a wink and tossed me the ball. I stood to catch it, then remembering I couldn’t catch, fumbled it, dropping it out of sheer shock since, first of all, Nice-Ass-First-Base-Dude had given me his dazzling smile, secondly, I was not sporty at all and third, about ten other people had lunged to grab it, totally shaking me up.

  “Oh my God! He smiled at you!” Izzy screamed. When I stood there gaping at her, she yelled, “Go get it!” prompting me into gear and scrambling to pick up the ball which I realized had gone under my seat and rolled two seats to my left, to where I ended up kneeling in front of an elderly gentleman to retrieve it. I’d smiled sheepishly at him as I reached between his legs to get my prize—Oy—and when I’d stood, the crowd had cheered for me, motivating me to uncomfortably hold the ball up at them and wave it reluctantly which only got me more of a roar.

  Dear. God.

  I sat back down and pulled the borrowed purple UDub cap Izzy had made me wear lower over my eyes to hide my mortification.

  “Zane Powers noticed you, Jilly Bean!” she screeched excitedly, her smile a mile wide. I nodded disconcertedly, crouching farther down into my seat, knowing that my long tri-colored hair of pink, seafoam green and blue had probably done the trick in making this Zane Powers, obviously a crowd favorite, pick me out, but whatever. “You’ll have to find him at the party tonight and thank him!”

  I looked down at the ball in my hand wondering why everyone was going nuts over it. I mean, I got why Izzy was, her dating Kaleb and all, and sure, the Powers guy was a good player. But why was everyone acting as if he’d ended world hunger by tossing me the ball?

  “Make sure to get that signed then put it on your mantle,” a guy behind me leaned down to say. At my questioning look over my shoulder at him, he explained, “They’re going to the College World Series if they can get through this last inning. Then Powers will go pro.”

  “Oh,” I uttered with a stupid nod then shared, “I read somewhere that only about ten senior college baseball players out of two hundred go pro. When you take a team of thirty players, let’s say seven of them are seniors, and there are, what, around three-hundred division one colleges, not counting the other two divisions and jucos, which means each of them has less than a quarter of a percent chance of making it to the pros.” At his dumbfounded look, I shrugged, embarrassed as hell because when I got nervous, I tended to blurt all kinds of useless information, mostly stupid stuff. And where I’d gotten that last bit of information, who knew? Probably from overhearing some guys in a class at some point. Yeesh.

  Finished sharing my buzzkilling information, I turned back around and dropped the ball into the huge tote-bag purse I always carried. I glanced at Izzy and shrugged again at her admonishing look as if I’d just spoiled that guy’s every hope and dream.

  When she turned to beam at Kaleb who was warming up to bat, I asked, “Powers?”

  “Yes!” she said, grinning. “Zane Powers, the first baseman! He’s really good and will probably go pro like that guy said, so you should bag him and you’ll be rich!” At my raised eyebrows and tilting of my head in a get real way, she was reminded I came from money and giggled out an, “Oh, yea
h.” Then came her squeal of, “But you should still go for him! He’s hot!”

  Not wanting to explain for the eighty-bazillionth time that I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, I let out a sigh as I watched the other team take the field. I wasn’t a snob by any means, but Izzy knew I had standards when it came to dating, a brain being my number one requirement. And since most twenty-something guys seemed only to have their brains between their legs, I’d decided to bypass dating for now, figuring that in a few years I’d find someone in his thirties who’d matured a bit and we’d go from there.

  Anyway, our team did get through the last inning and were on their way to the Series the next week, hence the huge party she’d talked me into attending afterward.

  At Izzy’s place we got ready, and along with a pair of mint green shorts, she made me wear the silver chainmail halter top I’d bought the summer before, which I’d been dying to wear but had had nowhere to do so until now.

  “That’s adorable on you!” she exclaimed. “The silver goes with your hair, makes you look truly mystical. It also makes your eyes pop like crazy. Or is that the eyeshadow?”

  “Eyeshadow,” I informed with a chuckle, inspecting myself in the mirror one last time. I’d loved makeup since my pseudo-emo phase in high school. I hadn’t really been emo. I just liked dressing that way, everything from the makeup to the highly-embellished wardrobe, which had flummoxed my mom and been great. From the phase, I’d learned some kickass eye makeup techniques that complemented my sky-blue eyes. Therefore, I’d now brushed on a mixture of dark blues and greens which I had to admit looked fabulous and did make my eyes stand out.

  “You look amazing,” I told her, making her squeal—again—excitedly.

  But Izzy really was a gorgeous woman, her wavy, blond shoulder-length hair looking quite lovely against the sheer chiffon, navy blouse she wore over a white camisole, and her white shorts making her legs look really tan. She too came from money but not eye-roll-inducing New York old money. Her parents owned ten high-dollar furniture stores across Washington State and Oregon, the one here in Seattle being the one Izzy worked at, and from what I’d gathered from their talk, they weren’t quite as wealthy as my parents but were probably somewhere close. They were also the nicest people, Golden Retrievers to my parents’ Pit Bulls.

  After inspecting ourselves in the mirror one last time, we headed to the block party. Yes, block party. Kaleb and several of the other baseball players rented houses along the same street, so we knew the party was going to be frigging huge.

  “You should find Zane Powers tonight. I mean, Kaleb said he doesn’t have a girlfriend and he did pick you out of that huge crowd, Jilly Bean,” she said as I drove through Kaleb’s neighborhood looking for somewhere to park.

  “He’s a jock,” I mumbled.

  She knew I meant her no offense by this. She dated a lot of jocks and we’d been over it before with her finally conceding that some athletes weren’t too into the academic scene.

  “Kaleb said he’s pre-law.”

  That got my attention. “Yeah?”

  “Uh huh.” She nodded and giggled at the same time knowing she’d piqued my interest. “Besides, how long has it been since you got laid? He could be a summer fling!”

  She had a point since it had been almost a year since I’d been with anyone.

  “You’re leaving in a couple days, and he’s a senior so odds are you won’t see him again once you get back, so what would it hurt to get some?”

  I snorted. “Since you make it sound so enticing…”

  She reached over and squeezed my hand on the steering wheel as I parked. “I’ll miss you so much! Did you find out if your parents will be home?”

  I was leaving in two days for the Chesapeake Bay area where I’d spend the last three weeks of June and all of July on a paid internship I’d gotten through the oceanography department at school. I was so excited to go, I’d had my bags packed for a week now. When I’d called my parents, who still lived in the New York City penthouse I’d grown up in in Carnegie Hill, thinking maybe we could get together, they’d informed me they’d be gone on their summer vacation. “I’ll miss you too! And, no. They’ll be doing the whole Milan, Tuscany and Rome thing again. I’ll probably be too busy to do much else anyway.”

  As we’d gotten closer to the party, we’d seen tons of people milling around everywhere, already imbibing in the various adult beverages that were being offered. It was so crowded, I’d had to park a couple blocks away.

  “Come on! I’ve gotta go congratulate Kaleb!” Izzy said, wiggling her eyebrows at me and making me frown a little. “I won’t leave you stranded, JB. We’ll party first, but you can leave whenever you’re ready. I’ll get a ride home.”

  I rolled my eyes, knowing her MO as well as I knew anything about her. She’d find Kaleb, we’d all three hang out for about twenty minutes before they disappeared to “celebrate,” leaving me to fend for myself. But, honestly, it really wasn’t a problem since I was a big girl and didn’t need her by my side, and anyway, over the years, I’d grown used to her making sure her boyfriends knew she was happy they’d won their game/match/set/whatever.

  I’d met Izzy our freshman year and we’d quickly become friends. She’d been in my Comp I class and had asked for help on a paper over the environment, which I’d been all over since, hello, oceanography major and tree hugger here. After attending too many parties with her over the past two years, I’d come to terms with her methods when it came to her guys—Kevin who’d been a linebacker for UDub’s football team, then Ben who was a wrestler and now Kaleb the pitcher, all of whom she’d loved hard, she was an all-or-nothing chick and I respected that—but the girl was also crazy over athletes and with every win, she made sure to let them know they’d done well.

  I was more than okay with her dating athletes because who doesn’t love looking at hot, muscular, in-shape guys? And other than feeling abandoned at times, I was good with her leaving me alone at these parties because I was a people person in that I loved watching them, hence my minor in psychology. Therefore, I’d usually grab a couple beers and find somewhere to sit and watch. Then after getting my fill of observing the mating dance of the potential hookups around me, or witnessing the buildup of two dudes drunkenly courting one chick and eventually fighting over her, I’d finally leave and go back to my apartment alone, perfectly content.

  So that night, everything went as expected. We found Kaleb who I congratulated on the win, then fifteen minutes later, he and Izzy vanished. I snorted at their predictability before going in search of my people-watching place, and after walking across two lawns, dodging many flirty, inebriated guys, I found a cozy place on a porch where I took a seat on a gliding bench. A guy then came up the steps, plopped a huge ice chest down on the porch next to me, stated that I was in charge of it and to drink all I liked then he’d smiled drunkenly before grabbing six Elysian Immortal beers—jackpot!—out of it, three in each hand, and wandered off leaving me set for the night. I had good beer and a great place from which to employ my human ogling.

  Over the next hour, a few guys came by who commented on my hair—mermaid hair was what it was called—so, of course, they’d asked if my name was Ariel, which I’d grown accustomed to and had chuckled right along with them, not at all upset because I loved my hair. Several other guys came up and sat in the glider next to me, chatting me up for a bit, then an argument would break out on a lawn somewhere and they’d take off to watch the fight, or a girlfriend would come by giving them the eye, and they’d excuse themselves.

  Now, I have to explain, I wasn’t a social pariah by any means. I liked people and I had a lot of friends. I’d dated a few guys my first year at UDub but had found that when it came to spending time with someone, as I mentioned before, I was kind of picky. I mean, I wanted to be with someone who not only knew who Melanie Klein or Sylvia Earle were, but they cared about the environment, were passionate about the field they were studying, could converse about a wide variety of
subjects and knew what kind of beer was the best, that last of which would serve to win them major brownie points with my dad if we happened to get serious. I wanted someone well-rounded. Someone who challenged me, you know? Kept me on my toes. But I’d quickly found that college parties weren’t the ideal place to find that person, which, duh. But it wasn’t a big deal because, again, as stated before, I knew college guys were mostly about having fun. So, yep, I was perfectly fine drinking my beer and studying everyone around me before calling it a night.

  Until I heard a deep voice that, I swear, made my insides shiver with need. Gah.

  “You here alone, Yogi?”

  I looked down to see Zane Powers himself, arms resting atop the porch railing which meant he was taller than what I’d thought. I myself was fairly tall standing at five-nine barefooted, so I figured he had to be at least six-four, tall enough for me to wear heels. Yes!

  I inwardly rolled my eyes that I’d even gone to the “could I wear stilettos if I dated him” query because I knew I wouldn’t be pursuing anything with him.

  Anyway, looking into the handsome star baseball player’s amber eyes, I frowned and said, “Yogi?”

  “Berra. Famous catcher. Yankees.” At my questioning look, he went on. “’It ain’t over till it’s over’? ‘It’s like déjà vu all over again’?” He saw the light bulb go on in my head. “See, I thought you’d know him.” I did but I was still puzzled as to why he’d call me that. “You caught the ball today? He was a catcher.”

  Oh. Soooo, remember all that stuff I said about a guy needing to be able to have good conversation and all? Yeah, maybe I should’ve taken my own advice. Ergh.

  “Would you like some company?” he asked with a grin, a dimple popping out in his left cheek.

  Feeling my heart begin to beat faster because, good lord, he was handsome, then biting my lip, I shrugged. “Sure.”

  He grinned even bigger making that dimple deeper, and I watched him stroll to his left then walk up the porch, his athletic body strong and powerful, the sleeves of his white button-down shirt rolled up to display thick, vascular forearms (it must be said now, I was a forearm girl, so wow!) and the outline of his muscular thighs showing through his medium-wash jeans all almost made me swoon.